Octogenarian shoots baskets over 20-somethings

We keep hearing the boomer generation has redefined aging, that 50 is the new 40.

Oops, now
60 is the new 40.

Sorry, boomers. Despite the magic math, boomers have nothing on their parents who are marching – make that running – into their 80s and beyond.

I'm playing basketball against Bob Johnson, who promised he would quit hoops on his 80th birthday. Something about not wanting to embarrass himself.

But Johnson's birthday came and went without basketball embarrassment.

Just as he's done since Richard Nixon was first elected president, Johnson drives his 1968 VW bug every Tuesday and Thursday to the YMCA in Newport Beach. There, he competes against players young enough to be his grandchildren.

Three times I battle Johnson for the rebound. Elbows fly. Bodies collide. Three times Johnson emerges with the ball.

If anyone should be embarrassed, it's certainly not the guy who served in the Army before I was born.

While warming up with Johnson, I feel some twinges and pull on a knee brace. Johnson frowns and confides he's had a few injuries, a sore Achilles tendon, a tweaked knee.

“Surgeries?” I ask.

Johnson shakes his head. I know people less than half Johnson's age – heck, teenagers – who have had multiple surgeries on ligaments, tendons.

“You've got two things to thank,” I offer of Johnson's health. “Your mother and your father.”

Johnson grins. With a master's in engineering from UCLA, Johnson appreciates the importance of good genes. Strong structure is everything.

Other players arrive. Most are in their 20s. One is 73. The first of three games begins. I guard Johnson.

We swap sweat under the basket. Again, Johnson emerges with the ball.

Later, I ask Johnson why he keeps playing.

“I love the competition.”

Really? I hadn't noticed.

Johnson, a precise man, tells me he's 6-foot-0.5 and that he gets his competitive streak from growing up small with bigger kids who were faster, stronger. He explains he didn't sprout until the end of high school.

He may be correct. But Johnson's father was a lawyer in Chicago. And Johnson's father also was a never-give-up kind of guy.

His dad ran for circuit court clerk and was defeated. He ran for Cook County sheriff – and was defeated. Johnson recounts the time watching his father in a drag-out fistfight that didn't end until his dad knocked the other man to the ground.

But don't confuse competitive with mean-spirited. Johnson just likes to do his best. Last year he placed second in a watermelon-eating contest.

The engineer who developed frequency filters for Collins Radio (now Rockwell Collins), supports every player on the court, including those on the opposing team.

I snatch a rebound. Johnson whispers, “Great job.” I manage to win a tug-of-war. “Great grab.” I nearly get knocked over putting myself in the path of a powerful dribbler. “Good block.”

After seeing discrimination while in the Army, Johnson and his wife, Lois, threw themselves into civil rights when they moved to Orange County with their three children in 1961. As an elder at Trinity United Presbyterian Church in north Tustin, Johnson supported the United Farm Workers' movement.

By the late 1960s, he was chairman of the Orange County Fair Housing Council. Eight years later, he co-founded the Orange County Community Housing Corp., a nonprofit that offers housing to the poor.

Three years ago, he co-authored a book, “A Different Shade of Orange,” a collection of oral histories by African Americans who lived in Orange County during the mid-20th century. Johnson also is a board member of the Santa Ana Black Historical Society.

Johnson shakes his head about the blatant racism that inspired him. When it came to buying homes, “blacks were being plain rejected.”

There are unfriendly pickup games in which strangers have to wait forever to play. And there are games such as the one Johnson keeps returning to, games where players are rotated in after four baskets.

As the game heats up, Anna Halat, a 25-year-old Costa Mesa resident, catches a pass, shoots and scores.

Against the backdrop of Newport's Upper Back Bay, her words capture the supportive atmosphere on the court.

How important is playing with old and new friends?

When Johnson started playing at the newly built YMCA near Collins Radio, he played during his lunch breaks. Now, he drives 25 miles round-trip just to play.

Outside. On concrete.

Then again, Johnson's always been a fan of pickup games. He played neighborhood basketball in junior high and high school. He played intramural at UCLA. He's played in church leagues. And on days when there's no game, Johnson plays in his driveway and shoots at a net hanging from his garage.

A new net, mind you.

For a half-century, Johnson used the same hoop. He would stand for hours, practicing. Over the years, he's shot thousands of baskets, perhaps a million.

What happened to the old net?

A neighbor recently surprised Johnson with a new basket and backboard.

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